Cristina Rouvalis

Cristina Rouvalis is a former Post-​Gazette feature writer who freelances for a variety of national and regional publications. She loves writing profiles, and her subjects have ran from a millionaire executive to a prison mom to a pro wrestler. In the name of journalism, she has done many things that go against her nature, including hawking peanuts at a Pirates game and following a repo man on an all-​night run.

For Dee Strunk, it came down to the screened-​in porch. She was touring retirement communities when she saw a charming porch in a carriage house at The Woodlands at St. Barnabus, and she knew this was it.

Five years ago, a senior citizen wanting to move into a stately retirement community would typically put his name on a list and wait, sometimes for a year or two. Today he would have little trouble finding an apartment in a community that boasts such amenities as indoor pools and spas, a golf…

Nellie King is lying on a hospital bed, his once-​sinewy muscles flaccid, his face ashen. The man who once hurled sinking fastballs past Frank Robinson and Ernie Banks is so weak from pneumonia that he can barely draw a breath. He has this terrifying sensation of his skin separating from his skeleton.

Kevin Guskiewicz has been called a genius for discovering the link between on-​field head hits to football players and damage to their brains; findings that once put him at odds with the mighty National Football League.

Other football players were bigger and faster. That didn’t hold back Greg Babe. During summer days, he would run up and down the steps inside Magnolia High School in New Martinsville, W. Va. while his friends hung out at the pool.

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